


Episode 20: Haria Enad

by PitoyaPTx



Series: Clan Meso'a [20]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clan Meso'a, Gen, Mandalorian, Mandalorian Clans, Mandalorian Culture, Worldbuilding, animals in Star Wars, clan dynamics, tribes, warrior culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 03:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18490270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PitoyaPTx/pseuds/PitoyaPTx
Summary: "Children of Ruin. I'll admit it's not something you hear every day." ~JechoCara finally gets her first lesson on the makeup of Clan Meso'a.





	Episode 20: Haria Enad

Cara stared wide eyed at Jecho. The Chibala took a swig from a small canteen and pushed it back into her bag. She rummaged through it, pushing aside a few papers and something that sounded like a heavy ball, then pulled out another holdisc identical to the one still sitting idly on the table. Instead of replacing the previous one, Jecho got up, switched off the lights, and set the new disk on the ground. She held out her hand to Cara.  
“Come. For this you should stand.”  
Cara hesitated and looked at Aviila who simply nodded and gestured forward. She took Jecho’s hand and stood. With her foot, Jecho nudged the side of the holodisc and the room was flooded with blinding blue light erupting from the center of the device.  
“Don’t mind the theatrics,” she laughed as five forms galloped out from the light, “Normally this is shown to small children.”  
The five forms solidified into five animals, two of which Cara recognized.  
“That’s a Chochoma!” she pointed to the hog-hound, prancing past with its harless tail wagging, “and a Dunuul!” The fish swam up above them, its reflective belly sparkling in the minimal light.  
Jecho nodded and pointed behind her, “That is Xalaraac, blood-eyes.”  
Cara turned and jumped with fright as an enormous serpent lunged forward and dashed at its invisible prey. She watched it wind around itself, its head peeking out between its muscular coils, eyes glowing in the dark. Cara went to approach it, but something swooped down out of the air, startling her once again.  
“A stoneray?” she asked as the flying cretin landed on the table and issued a noiseless squawk.  
“Nagut, wings of lightning,” Jecho affirmed. She reached around Cara and picked up the other holodisc from the table, “Let me explain.”  
She tapped the device on the floor again and the four animals disappeared, “Turn around, Cara.”  
Cara was still marveling at the other animals and turned rather absently. The fifth creature was not so absent. When she turned she found herself facing an enormous pair of luminous eyes, jagged teeth, and arm sized tusks. She froze, well aware that it was a projection, but still unnerved by it seemingly making direct eye contact. It turned its head; Cara saw that the creature had dark spots and large, bowl shaped ears that sloped to a slight point. Beyond the square jawline, there was a neck twice as thick as a crate with large, valve-like openings.  
“This...must be Jiiya?” she gulped, taking a step back.  
Aviila hummed affirmatively, “Jiiya, taker of the second blood. Always a tricky one, he is.”  
“This one is male?”  
“Yes.” she pointed to a slight crest of fur between its ears, “Males sometimes get a ragged mohawk of sorts when they’re young.”  
Cara blinked, “Young?”  
“Yes, this one is young, albeit probably about twice the height of this house.”  
The color drained from Cara’s face. She felt a warm hand on her arm.  
“Don’t worry,” said Jecho in what should have been a comforting tone, although what could comfort the thought of a gargantuan monster roaming around, “In the summer, the Jiiya are kept in the southwest near the ocean. They have thick coats, and it is much cooler there.”  
Cara gulped; the Jiiya threw its head back and shook its neck. She tore her eyes away and noticed to her left that Jecho was turning and resizing the map of Meso’kaan such that only the western continent was visible. She tapped the central plains and the Jiiya disappeared, replaced by the much more friendly, tail-wagging Chochoma.  
“Brood of Tusks, the plains tribe, was formed by those who followed Chochoma after the betrayal of Rahast,” she explained, “They made stone statues of the hog-hound and placed them in boxes around their camps. In them, they left offerings of meat and berries. They believed blessings came to the villages whose shrines were visited by Chochoma.”  
“Because they blessed the hunting?” Cara asked, looking to Aviila for confirmation.  
“Exactly,” Jecho smiled, “So you did teach her some things?”  
“Over lunch, maybe,” Aviila smiled back, head rested on her palm.  
“Our ancestors called themselves ‘Chochoma Enad’, or ‘Children of Chochoma’ to honor the animal, but after they converted to belief in Kad, they became the Brood.”  
“Who is Kad?”  
“We’ll get to that another time,” Jecho shifted the map again and tapped the jungle. Xalaraac slithered into the light and coiled up at Cara’s feet, “Winged Serpents, the plains tribe, was formed by those who followed the great serpent and its feathered tail.”  
Cara tried to peer around the snake to see its tail, but it was so tightly wound up she gave up after a moment or so.  
“They too made statues, but left them out in the open to lure in the elusive creature,” she went on, “From their necks, they hung strings of rodent hearts. If a Xalaraac ate the hearts-”  
“Blessings over their hunts?”  
“And good fortune during the spring rains that often lead to flooding,” Aviila added, “Even today we have trouble with the ground dwellings washing away despite them being made of metal and not mud now.”  
“Could they live in the trees?” Cara asked, “They look really sturdy.”  
“Many do, but as you get closer to the eastern ocean you run the risk of hurricane damage,” Jecho highlighted the easter edge of the jungle. It was much less dense than the western and even the central areas.  
“So..how do they live there, then?”  
“Some,” Jecho zoomed in further and centered the map around a deep ravine carving a jagged wound in the ground, “prefer to live in underground dwellings in the many ravines and crevasses. In the myth, when Rahast was tearing up the ground, she left these pits and ravines across the planet. There is a large concentration of them around the jungle,” she pointed out several other cracks and pits, “and the ancestral members of this tribe believed that they had the right to rule the other tribes since the landscape suggested Rahast spent more time in the jungle.”  
“Did she?”  
Jecho and Aviila looked at each other.  
“Cara… Rahast is just a story, at least, a sky demoness creating life is just a story,” Aviila said, choosing her words carefully.  
“The real Rahast is actually a star cluster not too far from here,” Jecho explained, “We figured out that at some point, when the cluster was forming, it spit out all sorts of debris and other materials down onto this planet. It makes sense out of the craters as well as the mineral deposits unique to this system.”  
Cara scratched her head. Truth be told, she knew next to nothing about star clusters or space debris, but she took their word for it.  
“So why a sky demon and not...you know, star cluster...goddess?”  
Aviila chuckled, “If you saw a flaming ball of fire hit the ground, would you believe in the physical movements of complex celestial bodies or that there was an angry entity throwing things at you?”  
Cara smiled for the first time that afternoon.  
“To be fair,” Jecho snickered, “There are those who believe a real beast came down from the heavens that was killed by our ancestors.”  
“But the remains mysteriously vanished into the ocean,” Aviila rolled her eyes, “There’s no proof of anything substantial.”  
“I know, but it was my order who wrote about it, so,” Jecho winked at Cara, “I have to believe it’s true.”  
Jecho again turned the map, this time tapping the northern mountain range that extended from coast to coast. As she brought it into better focus, Cara’s eyes immediately fell on a large volcano towards the Western end.  
“Is that the mountain you keep looking at?” she pointed to it, “Is it active?”  
Something flashed across Aviila’s features, but in the dim light it was hard to discern. She sat up straight and studied the smoking crater.  
“At times it will smolder and spit up ash, but nothing catastrophic,” she pointed to a dark line running down the side of the mountain, “Old lava flows will re-awaken every hundred years or so. It is active, but not explosive.”  
“Ah,” said Cara, figuring that was as close to an answer as she was going to get.  
“The mountain tribe, Storm Harpies, live more towards the center of the mountain range where there are more clear patches to build upon,” she circled a cluster of peaks, some tall enough to be above the clouds, “They mostly hunt cliff dwelling animals, sleen, and rodents that frequent areas with volcanic activity. It’s also the tribe you can thank for Ka’hast.”  
“They farm the spices,” said Aviila, “They only grow around the volcanoes. Those rodents they hunt are addicted to them.”  
“So they’re easy to capture?” asked Cara.  
“Relatively,” Aviila shrugged, “But they’re quite fast.”  
“The Storm Harpies,” Jecho continued as the Stoneraw swooped in to replace the Xalaraac, “were formed by-”  
“Those who followed Nagut. The Nagut Ehnad.” Cara said excitedly, starting to understand the connection between tribe and animal.  
“Correct!” Jecho beamed, “But instead of statues and shrines, they carved the face of Nagut into the mountains and hung berries round the neck-”  
“For good hunting-”  
“And protection from landslides, earthquakes, blizzards-”  
“And thunderstorms?”  
Jecho was grinning widely now, “Yes, Cara, I think you’ve got it!”  
Cara stomped excitedly, looking to Aviila for confirmation. The older Twi’lek was smiling just as warmly as her tutor, now sitting up straight and watching the lesson with interest.  
“We’ll work on your pronunciation,” Jecho brought her back to the holo, “but this is a good start!”  
“Oh, thank you!” said Cara, feeling a little smug thinking about her “lesson” with Tavut, “But um, what language is it again? Mandoah?”  
“Uh,” Jecho looked at Aviila, “Did you teach her mando’a or Soah-ra?”  
“Mando’a.”  
Cara nodded, “That’s what Tavut said it was too.”  
Jecho absently itched her cheek and thought for a moment, “Well, mando’a is very useful for you to know, but the Chibala mostly speak and write in Soah-ra, which is the language of the ancestors. In Basic, ‘Soah-ra’ roughly means ‘spoken word’ as the ancestors wrote more than they spoke.”  
A few things about that sounded weird to Cara. Who writes more than they speak? Also, didn’t Jecho refer to them as ‘our ancestors’ earlier, or was she mistaken?  
“Um..Jecho Har-”  
“Just Jecho, please.”  
“Oh,” Cara flushed, “sorry, um..Jecho, why didn’t they speak much?”  
“That’s the perfect transition,” she zoomed out such that the entire continent was now in view, “The tribes couldn’t decide who would lead in Rahast’s absence. So began centuries of constant warfare that nearly ended in their extinction. They became so warlike that their language became truncated and boiled down to the essential, subject-verb-object form sans most things we would consider adjectives or descriptors.”  
“In other words,” Aviila quickly added as confusion spread across Cara’s face, “They started speaking in commands instead of normal sentences. For example they would say ‘Mine’, or ‘Ta’, in place of ‘That belongs to me’ or ‘That is mine’.”  
“When all you do is eat, sleep, fight, and make sacrifices to the animals, there isn’t much left to talk about.”  
Cara somewhat understood what they meant, so she nodded before they tried to explain more and confuse her even further. She turned back to the map, imagining the hordes of warriors sweeping across the land, until her eyes fell upon the shoreline.  
“The Dunuul!” she exclaimed, startling her companions, “The sea tribe, the...Dunnul Ehnad?”  
Jecho blinked, then brought her palm to her forehead, “Oh my! How could I forget my home-tribe.”  
Aviila chuckled, “Don’t let them hear that!”  
“Oh I’d never hear the end of it!” she laughed, “Yes, the Dunuul Enad. Now the Drowned Suns, they also had statues in boxes for the Dunuul.”  
The toddler-sized fish swam up where the Stoneray had been hovering. “The Dunuul comes up to the beach at the end of the winter to lay eggs in the shallows. Just at the edge, where sand and water meet,” she turned the map and zoomed in to the beaches in the shadow of large cliffs, “the tribe leaves crustaceans and diced vegetables for the expecting mothers to eat.”  
“Does it help them give birth?” Cara asked.  
“I’m not sure,” Jecho turned back to Aviila, “have you heard anything like that?”  
Aviila shrugged, “No, but I have seen fat Dunuul waiting for the offerings to be put out.”  
“Oh, so they still give them offerings?” Cara thought back to the Chochoma roaming around the marketplace and how healthy they all looked.  
Jecho nodded, “Yes, but now it’s more to make sure they’re healthy and that their numbers remain consistent. Overfishing was a problem for the non-Clan a few hundred years ago. By leaving offerings, we can check on them without being intrusive.”  
“Same thing with the Xalaraac,” said Aviila, “They are hard to find, but they do come to their shrines. That’s really the only sure way to know how they are doing. Chochoma and Nagut are everywhere, so it’s not hard to keep tabs on them.”  
“Dunuul are largely bottom feeders,” added Jecho, “Our divers check on them, but we can keep a better count when we watch the little ones hatch.”  
“Oh, okay,” Cara crossed her arms behind her back and watched the waves crash against the beach, “The Jiyya are in the southwest, you said? Does that mean they are with the Drowned Suns?”  
Both women nodded. Aviila stood up and brought the map out slightly, turned it counter-clockwise and pointed to a lagoon with a wall cutting it off from the ocean, “They are kept here to raise their cubs. Once the trials begin, the juveniles are brought back up here,” she dragged the map north to a large village with a central arena.  
“What’s that?” asked Cara, pointing to it.  
“That is where children become warriors,” Jecho explained, “I am not in charge of the history of the trials,” she admitted, “but I can tell you that they can be deadly.”  
“Who is?”  
Aviila chuckled, “Your favorite person.”  
Cara wrinkled her nose, “Tavut?”  
The older woman roared with laughter, “No, little one, Ba’atuk!”  
Flaming yellow eyes swam back into Cara’s mind along with sharp horns and the most hostile visage she’d ever seen. Ba’atuk could have scared the hair off of Leata had they met. Cara quickly focussed on the map before Fent and Beon could re-enter her thoughts.  
“Can’t the Chibala teach me about the trials?” she asked, hopefully.  
“We can teach you about their history,” Jecho reached down and powered off the holodisc, “But normally we take our students to watch the trials at the end of the lesson.”  
“The trials are set to start soon,” Aviila rubbed her chin thoughtfully, “We’ll meet up with Ba’atuk when they begin so you’ll have a good view of the event. She is normally in the thick of things, but where she sits before and after the trials is quite nice.”  
Cara gulped. The thought of sitting beside the warrior made feel nauseous with anxiety. Jecho turned the lights back on and began to pack up. Cara rubbed her eyes as the light hit them then yawned and stretched.  
“I’ll start warming up the leftover malle’nuul.” Aviila yawned as well, then followed Jecho to the door, “Thank you again, vod.”  
“Of course,” Jecho took her forearm and put her forehead to Aviila’s, “I’ll be back again tomorrow, Cara.”  
Cara managed a smile, a real one, but had one last question that had been bothering her all afternoon.  
“Jecho?”  
“Hm?”  
“Your Basic..it’s really good.”  
Jecho flushed purple, “Oh, thank you. I’ve been speaking it most of my life.”  
Cara lit up, “Oh! Does that mean all Chibala speak Basic!”  
Jecho hesitated and glanced at Aviila.  
“Cara,” she said slowly, “I wasn’t born here. Like you, I was rescued by the Meso’a.”  
“Oh,” Cara’s shoulders fell.  
“But, I do remember what it felt like to feel out of place,” she added quickly, hoping that it was the right thing to say.  
Cara perked up, “Really?! I..I have some many..there’s just-”  
“I get it,” Jecho moved back into the room and took Cara by the shoulders, “There’s a lot to learn and a lot to take in, but I can help you figure it out.”  
“Thank you!” Cara rushed forward hugged her tight, relief flooding over her.  
Jecho, startled, looked up at Aviila who was watching the exchange with a slight look of concern.  
“Tir’ra’na,” Aviila whispered.  
Jecho nodded. 

Cara waved enthusiastically as Jecho disappeared down the hill towards the market. They’d offered to have her for dinner, but she wanted to buy some supplies before she headed off to her next student.  
“You like her?” Aviila asked, shutting the door and using her sleeve to wipe her lekku free of rainwater.  
“I do..thank you,” Cara made to hug her, then stopped.  
Aviila closed the gap and put her forehead to hers.  
“Keldabe kiss,” she said, “Most of us would rather you do this than a hug, unless,” she brought Cara forward into an embrace, “You know them well enough.”  
Cara smiled and settled in, glad she hadn’t stayed upstairs all day. 

That evening, after she lit the oil lamp, Jecho wiped off her face paint and stared at her reflection. She tried to ignore it, thought many times about destroying it, but once again her eyes fell upon the worn photo wedged between the mirror and the wall.  
“Eight years,” she gently smoothed down a folded corner, “Eight years, and I still miss you.”


End file.
